Give a Kick-Start to Your Kid’s Growth – Taekwondo for Health

Are you looking for a safe and fun sport that your child can grow with? Does your child need to develop good habits that include sportsmanship, respect, discipline, and focus. Taekwondo is a great way to help your child learn to love exercise and competition the right way. Kids’ taekwondo classes help your child achieve goals, get in great shape, and meet new friends. In Golden, taekwondo classes are available through the Colorado Taekwondo Institute, entering its fourth decade as the state’s premier martial arts training school. Learning the power of the kick will never seem so healthy and productive.

Safety First

Parents are always rightfully concerned about their kids’ safety when they begin participating in sports, particularly at a young age. Although injuries are often a reality when it comes to physical sports, taekwondo classes at the Colorado Taekwondo Institute are very safe for children (and adults alike).

• Custom Suspension Floors – Each campus of the Colorado Taekwondo Institute has fully custom built, suspension floors. These floors, built much like a gymnastic floor, make the strenuous workouts of our classes much easier on the feet, ankles, knees and back.
• Sparring Pads – Sparring is something done in class that is the closest thing to a real life situation for students to practice. But safety comes first. Student wear protective gear and we spar "point style", so there is no full contact sparring. This is much safer for students and students are able to spar without the fear of injury.
• Spacious Workout Areas - In each class, students are kicking and punching. Luckily each of our campuses, including the Golden campus, have very spacious workout areas. This way there is plenty of room for students to practice their moves without accidently hitting anyone else.
• Structured Classes - Classes are very structured and organized, so children are not messing around. Our dynamic instructors keep your children moving and learning, so there is no goofing around during class.

Loving Physical Fitness

Every parent wants to ensure that their child grows up to be physically fit and healthy. Obesity rates are growing in the U.S. and kids need a safe and healthy way to burn calories and develop good muscle strength. Exercise also boosts your child’s energy level, allowing them to be more active without getting fatigued, and form a lifelong love for physical fitness.Thankfully, Colorado blesses children with plenty of sunshine for outdoor activities, but Golden taekwondo and other Colorado-wide training campuses allow children to participate year-round in their favorite physical activity.

In addition to being a great way to exercise and stay physically fit, kids’ taekwondo offers students a chance to build great core strength and develop excellent gross motor skills. Using the foot as a fist helps them develop agility and confidence with all of their body movements, skills that easily translate to other sports and activities like performance and dance.

Taekwondo for Boys

Many young men face issues with aggression control and hyperactivity as they mature into their adolescent years. Taekwondo training is a great way for boys to harness their energy toward positive and healthy goals. Often, young boys can learn to be less aggressive, more confident, and even more respectful of others through the process of earning belts and learning the tenets of perseverance, integrity, focus, and discipline.

Taekwondo training can also be very beneficial for boys that struggle with attention deficit disorders that might make them lag behind in school. Through the process of achieving goals and earning belts, boys build their self-esteem and learn ways to foster inner peace through meditation and calming practices that they can use in the classroom for greater success.

Taekwondo for Girls, Too

Taekwondo is not just a great way for boys to harness energy and compete against one another. Taekwondo training is a great way for girls to develop the same qualities and tackle some of the specific challenges faced by young women. Physical fitness and agility training helps young girls develop a healthy body image early on, leading to a lifetime of good health and self-confidence that can translate to their social interactions and success in all areas of life.

Martial art training is becoming more and more popular for young girls, not just as a self-defense technique, but simply as a way for girls to show their own strength and ability to achieve goals on par with their male counterparts. Taekwondo is also a safe way for girls to participate in sports on the same level with boys and excel toward a hierarchy of goals and belts.

Sources:

http://www.taekwondo-information.org/benefits-of-taekwondo-for-children.html

http://mom.me/parenting/5156-how-does-taekwondo-affect-child-development/

My New Life as a CTI Taekwondo Student

"I feel stronger mentally, physically and emotionally."

By Jayne Bognar, yellow belt

As a testing white belt in the Colorado Taekwondo Institute, martial arts has impacted my life in several, positive ways.  The most pervasive being the profound impact on my over-all well-being.  In addition to being twelve pounds lighter, I feel as though my “life’s’ load” no longer weighs me down as much.  I feel stronger mentally, physically, and emotionally.  The intense exercise provides me with the much needed cathartic release of stress from my career and external events.

Prior to CTI Taekwondo, I was experiencing, on average, four Migraine headaches per month as well as frequent tension headaches accompanied by neck and shoulder pain.  All aspects of this training have dramatically diminished the latter.  Now that I am engaging in a positive outlet to lower my stress, I am more able to manage my eating rather than use food to combat stress.

It is quite validating to have others recognize the changes in me since the inception of Taekwondo in my life. The most common theme is my calmer disposition as well as an increase in my self-confidence.  When others begin to notice, you must be doing something right!   I just feel as though I walk “taller” and have a greater sense of peace and awareness in my life.  Of course, there have been classes where I have just wanted to crawl in a hole due to that “stinking thinking” which can range from, “I hate being the fattest person in class,” to “Will I ever be able to get all the way through these jumping jacks?”  These moments are fewer and farther between as I tell myself that positive thoughts breed positive results!

Finally, being a new student Colorado Taekwondo Institute has provided me with a greater sense of empathy than before, for my students. Feeling like they will “never get it” is often a common theme that my special education students communicate to me.  I now can relate to them on a deeper level, as we often have conversations about these feelings that their teacher can truly identify with.  I believe I am a more effective teacher because of it.

In conclusion, I have found something that I feel committed to and offers me more than just great exercise.  It offers another group of people to whom I can feel connected, has increased my focus, decreased my stress, and just has made me a better person all around.  A person, whom I hope, people will see an “indomitable spirit.”

AMASEA Regional Director Articulates Competitive Strategies

Alice Meyung in Lakewood

Values of the Kihap

By: Alice Meyung, 4th dan

In a recent study at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, researchers looked at the effect of a tennis player’s grunt on the opponent.  In the study, thirty-three undergraduate students watched footage of tennis players hitting the ball across the tennis court.  In some of the videos, the player hitting the ball would grunt at the moment their racquet made contact with the ball while in other clips no sound was made.  The students participating in the study had to use a keyboard to state the direction the shot was going to go as quickly and as accurately as possible.  Researchers found when the player emitted a grunt, it caused “significantly slower response times, and significantly more decision errors” on the part of the student on the keyboard.  The student responding on the keyboard could not pinpoint the trajectory of the shot as accurately or as quickly.

Take a look at footage of Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal.  Each time he hits the ball he emits a grunt. The grunt clearly comes his stomach.  If you look at photos of him at the moment of impact you can see the grunt tightens his stomach.  It helps him breathe, and I’m sure he would tell you it helps him hit with much more force.  Nadal is so well known for his grunt, his opponents have openly taunted him about it on the court.  This year Nadal achieved the career grand slam and finished the season ranking number 1 in men’s singles.

In Moo Sul Kwan Taekwondo, we kihap (Korean for "yell") for the exact same reasons.  If we apply the same ideas of the study to sparring, we can see why and how the kihap not only helps us with our moves but throws our opponent off.  When you kihap while throwing a move (grunting while hitting the ball), the extraneous sound causes the opponent to react slower and most likely judge the trajectory of your move incorrectly.  You could easily take advantage of this by changing the trajectory of your move while their brain is momentarily suspended and attempting to make a decision.  This is why a low roundhouse or front kick fake to the knee with a huge, fierce kihap quickly changed into a roundhouse to the side of the head can be very successful.     Also, if you kihap while your opponent is throwing their move, you know that for a split second their focus will be distracted enough to cause them to make a “decision error.”  They could question their move or end up changing the trajectory, giving you time to get in there with a quick reverse punch.

We also know that kihaping helps us breathe and tightens our stomach, which gives us a stronger core and protection against hits.  And on the flip side, as martial artists we have to be able to tune out our opponent’s kihap and be so intensely focused that we triumph over the momentary suspension of reaction in our brains. If you make every kihap have intent, each one will be successful, and you’ll finish the year ranked no. 1 in sparring.